The Garden State's plan to ban all grocery store bags could have negative consequences for consumer convenience and the environment.

In August 2018, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would have imposed a five-cent fee on both paper and plastic carryout bags, arguing that the legislation did not do enough to protect the Garden State's famed natural beauty.

"Single-use carryout bags—particularly plastic bags—represent a significant source of the litter that clutters our communities and mars New Jersey's beautiful shoreline and parks," wrote Murphy in his veto statement. "Instituting a five-cent fee on single-use bags that only applies to certain retailers does not go far enough."

State legislators have clearly heard this message, floating proposals to ban not just plastic grocery bags, but all single-use bags—paper or plastic.

Working its way though the legislature right now is S2776. As written, the legislation would ban food service businesses and other retailers who have stores larger than 1,000 square feet from providing their customers with plastic bags. The bill would also naturally ban plastic straws.

Violators would be fined anywhere from $500 to $5,000 depending on the number of offenses.

The bill passed one state Senate committee back in September 2018 but has been idling in the legislature ever since.

That was until late last week, when Sen. Bob Smith (D–Middlesex), one of the bill's sponsors, announced his intention to amend S2776 to ban these same stores from handing out paper bags too. The idea, Smith says, came to him while on vacation in Aruba, where a similar bag ban is in effect.

"Nobody's grumbling," the senator told NJ.com, saying that the Arubans have really taken to bringing their own reusable bags to the store. "Everybody in the line, they all do it."

NJ.com reports that Aruba has a ban on retailers handing out plastic bags, and imposes a roughly 28-cent fee on paper bags.

According to Smith's comments on his yet-to-be released amendment, his bag ban would be more radical still. "No bags whatsoever … No single-use plastic, no paper," he said to NJ.com.

Smith stands a good chance of getting his paper bag ban through. He claims to already have the support of Senate leadership. The state's grocery store association is also on board with the policy.

Still, one wonders what the practical effects of Smith's amendment, as well as the wider plastic bag ban, will be.

A recent study of plastic bag bans in California found that the policy—while still reducing plastic bag consumption overall—did lead to a 120 percent spike in the purchase of smaller garbage bags.

As it turns out, the single-use plastic bags people used at the grocery store were hardly single-use at all, but rather were reused to line waste baskets or clean up after pets. When the free option disappeared, people simply started purchasing unprohibited garbage bags.

New Jersey's bag ban would seem to have a similar potential for this kind of substitution. While it bars stores from handing out thinner plastic bags, it still allows them to provide customers with plastic tote bags provided they're thicker than 10 mils.

As written, stores could well end up ditching their current carry-out bags for another type of thicker plastic bag, which would seemingly increase overall plastic consumption.

Smith's amendment has yet to be released, so it's possible that the thicker plastic bags will be stripped out of the bill as well. The senator's stated goal is to get people bringing their own reusable tote bags to the store.

That too could have negative consequences for the environment.

When accounting for the emissions and energy required to produce them, things like cotton tote bags are far worse for the environment. That same study of California's bag bans found that reusable cotton bags would have to be reused 131 times in order to have the same impact on the climate as single-use plastic bags.

That's a long time for a tote bag to last. Should one be damaged, lost, or forgotten at home, shoppers will have to buy another one, worsening their impact on the climate.

In all fairness, New Jersey's bag banners are more focused on fighting litter, not global warming, with this bill, and one could easily imagine that there would indeed be less stray trash in a world without single-use bags.

However, it's also possible that a total bag ban could encourage more littering in some instances, as shoppers would have no ready receptacle to collect the wrappers, cups, or containers that came with their purchase.

Items like candy wrappers, cups, and miscellaneous papers are already more likely to be littered than bags of any kind according to a survey of the state's roadside litter.

Plastic litter, and litter in general, is a problem. I don't begrudge New Jersey's politicians for being concerned with the aesthetic appeal of their state.

That said, a ban on all single-use bags is the height of nanny statism, and could well be counterproductive to the state's environmental goals.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.